1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, an image forming method, and a non-transitory computer readable recording medium stored with an image forming program.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there has been an image forming apparatus capable of using a continuous paper (including a roll paper) as a recording medium. In such an image forming apparatus, when the continuous paper is conveyed to a position of an image forming unit, a toner image formed in the image forming unit is transferred to the continuous paper. After that, the continuous paper is conveyed to a position of a fixing device, the toner is melted by heating, and thereby fixing the toner image on the continuous paper.
Therefore, the continuous paper is conveyed according to the image forming operation described above, and is controlled so as not to be conveyed while the image forming operation is stopped.
At this time, the fixing device continuously heats the continuous paper even while conveyance of the continuous paper is stopped. Because of this, when a stop time of conveying the continuous paper becomes long, heat is concentrated on a local part of the continuous paper, and thermal alteration, such as burn, may be generated.
Consequently, in order to prevent thermal alteration on the continuous paper, a fixing device in which, while conveyance of a continuous paper is stopped, nip of the continuous paper by a fixing roller serving as a heat source is released and the fixing roller is separated from the continuous paper, has been developed (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. H09-160424).
However, due to lack of space where the fixing device is installed, there is a limit to a distance of the fixing roller separated from the continuous paper. As a result, even if the fixing roller is separated from the continuous paper while the conveyance of the continuous paper is stopped, some heat may be transferred to the continuous paper. In a case where the stop time of conveying the continuous paper is further increased, this cannot prevent thermal alteration of the continuous paper.